Slashdot Mirror
The Best of Popular Science?
Stront asks: "No doubt like many on Slashdot, I am an avid reader of popular science, and am constantly on the search for good examples of the genre. Now, The Elegant Universe is probably the best on Superstrings; the excellent Genome received a very favourable review on Slashdot; and probably the most anticipated book on Quantum physics is the soon to be released The New Quantum Universe, the follow up to the highly rated The Quantum Universe. Now of the thousands of Popular Science books available, what does Slashdot recommend for the other innumerable sciences such as of relativity, molecular biology, consciousness, astronomy etc?"
The latter presents a very readable summary of what is perhaps the first rigorous application of the scientific method to history. Since it's the first, he started by answering the big questions of the past thirteen thousand years. Essentially: how did Eurasians come to own the world? He knows, and now I do.
The former is a tour de force covering all aspects of northern experience, from early exploration to detailed descriptions of the critters who survive there, and how. I just open it anywhere, now, and start reading, and am always captivated. The maps alone bring delight.
Yes, Brain Greene's the Elegant Universe was a good read. Well off the top of my head I can only remember one good book I've read lately. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, it's an old book with the 1st edition published in the 70's, but still a fantastic read, it has some wonderful insights to evolution. In this book he recomends The Extended Phenotype, it's apparently an excellent read too, he says it's the pride and joy of his professional career
There is Carl Sagan's TV series and book called Cosmos, videos may be viewable in your local library. This too is an old series, but still very good. It's the real basics, great for lay persons, Carl Sagan has this knack for explaining and story telling.
Psi